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Monday, 11 April 2016

The Bayou's Most Wanted - Trixiebelle

Some things in life are better left unseen. Like the Black Joker on a damage flip. Or me before I've had my morning tea. And the one thing that's definitely best left unseen is a Gremlin in Daisy Duke shorts and a crop top. At least it's not Lenny in that get up I guess.....

So take a bow Trixibelle who has the dubious honour in a game full of undead hookers, abominations made of metal & flesh and a bunch of other unspeakable horrors, has often been referred to as the most disturbing model in the game. I don't see the problem with green boobs personally.....

Hello boys.....

Trixiebelle is the Henchman for Mah Tucket's crew - The Bushwackers. She has fairly decent Df 6 and Wp 5 which is pretty good. She's reasonably speedy with a Wk of 5 and a Cg of 6 so nothing immediately seems to single her out as a key model in your crew. So then, what's the big deal about Trixiebelle? The main reason can be found on the front of her card with the ability Ill Omens. This is the same ability the the Doppleganger has in the Neverborn faction which allows you to cheat the initiative flip. This can be very useful in any crew but it works really well with Mah, allowing you to alter the suit to get the desired bonus from Chores.

Trixiebelle also has Reckless, which is very common across the Gremlin faction, allowing you to take a wound in exchange for another AP. The other ability on the front of her card is quite interesting and has some nice applications. "Don't Fight Over Me Boys" means that when this model is targeted by an Attack Action - a friendly Gremlin within 3" and LOS, as long as it is a legal target, may suffer 1 damage to become to target instead. This is particularly handy if you want to send Trixie off scheme running or if there's something in the scheme pool that rewards killing models.

Trixie has one (0) Tactical Action on the back of her card and it's one that makes her a good choice for scheme running. "Presents? For Me" allows her to target any number of Scheme Markers (this includes enemy Markers) that are in base contact with her. And the end of her activation, all these targeted Markers are placed in base contact with her. So she's essentially able to drop and drag a lot of Scheme Markers with her and then leave them where they need to be. And with a Wk stat of 5 plus Reckless, she can move them a long way very quickly if needed.

The other 2 abilities she has are both (1) actions. First is her melee attack "Slap" which has a damage track of 1/2/3 so not terribly effective but she's not designed to be much of a combat machine. This attack has a couple of triggers, a Ram allows a friendly Gremlin within LoS and range to make a (1) Ml attack against the same target which may not declare Triggers. This is a bit situational but there are uses with other beater type models to take a free swing against something that's tying up Trixiebelle. The Trigger on a Mask is "Help!" which allows any other friendly Gremlin within 8" and LoS to push up to their Wk towards the target after Trixie has damaged the target. Again this is a bit situational but a couple of uses I can see are to pull a beater over to help Trixie take care of something that's stopping her from scheme running or even to pull something away from being pummelled by an enemy model. The Trigger on this attack is delared on a Crow and has the brilliant name of "Never Neeeded To See That...." (and let's face it, who DOES?) and inflicts Slow on the target after damaging. So not only can you move them away from something, you can seriously hamper their ability to get back into position.

Trixie does have her very own upgrade though, which is A Gun For A Lady. This, as the name might imply, gives her a shooting Attack Action. This Attack must declare a Trigger and each suit has it's own Trigger. I tend not to take this option too often as I find Trixie has other uses in a crew than shooting things - and there are better options for the task of ranged damage dealing. It is only a 1SS upgrade though, so if you have the stone spare then it isn't terrible. The damage track is a healthy 3/4/5 and all of the triggers (excepting the one that does damage to a nearby friendly model) are beneficial to your crew, either allowing you to move a nearby friendly model, gain ++ flips to the damage flip or even put Slow on a target.

So what do I use Trixiebelle for? Mostly I use her for moving things around, be it models (both friendly and enemy) and scheme markers (again both friendly and enemy). Having her in a Mah crew is also handy, the ability to cheat the Initiative flip allows you to put down your desired suit for Chores, even if you can't win the Initiative flip with that card. Gremlin Lure combined with either Mah's Horrible Hollerin' or to a lesser extent Ophelia's Oooo A Girl, can mean you can have your entire crew halfway across the board very early on if you so desire. On the flipside of that, Gremlin Lure can also help pin your opponent back - moving something it's Charge distance away is great in something like Turf War or you could even use it to make scheme running a lot harder.

She also has some synergy with Brewmaster - handing out Poison with her (0) Action Buy You A Drink can give her a bit of extra utility on that crew. Also when you take into account the Whiskey Golem is classed as a Gremlin she can Gremlin Lure the big lumbering lug all over the place. So if you're something of an aggressive player, you can have your Nimble Whiskey Golem in a position to get at your opponent very early on.

So that's Trixiebelle. I've pretty much decided she's an auto-include for my 2 current Gremlin Masters (Mah and Ophelia) and I'm interested to see how she functions as I carry on trying out new Masters. I think she's best summed up in the words of Mah herself though. "Don't let them bazooms fool ye. She'd skin yer alive and make a pot o'soup with the rest afore ye realised ye wuz starin'".